A stranger sat at her table, claiming to be her soulmate.

I scoffed, nudging the bartender. "I can’t leave her alone for a few minutes—look at her, she’s gorgeous."

I had only stepped away to get us drinks, but there she was, surrounded by someone who couldn’t resist her beauty. If only he knew how beautiful she was on the inside, how much depth lay behind those soft eyes and effortless smile. I just laughed it off, shaking my head as I waited for my drink.

But beneath my amusement, there was something else. A gnawing feeling I didn’t want to name. I felt invisible everywhere I went with her.

The stranger barely spared me a glance as he sat across from her, completely at ease, as if he belonged there. She should have been annoyed. She never tolerated people invading her space. But she only blinked at him, lips parting slightly in confusion—or maybe something else. Recognition. I frowned, taking a slow sip of my drink.

“Who is this guy?” I muttered, but no one answered.

She tilted her head, watching him. “I don’t know why, but I feel like I know you.”

His smile was small, knowing. “Maybe you do.”

Something inside me wavered. The bar around me seemed to dim, the sounds growing distant. I turned to the bartender, expecting him to react, to acknowledge that something was strange about this, but he was already wiping down glasses, lost in his routine.

No one else reacted. The waitstaff moved between tables, customers laughed over their drinks. The world carried on, as if I weren’t even there.

A strange sensation crawled up my spine. I reached for her hand, just to touch her, just to feel real—but my fingers passed through her wrist like mist.

My breath hitched. I staggered back, my legs suddenly weak beneath me.

No. No, that wasn’t right.

I clenched my fists, willing the world to make sense again. But then she shivered. A small, fleeting thing, as if she had just felt a whisper of cold air. Her eyes flickered away from the stranger, darting briefly across the room—searching. Searching for something unseen. For me.

“Love,” I whispered. “I’m right here.”

But her gaze slid past me, unseeing. And then, just like that, she turned back to him.

“Tell me your name,” she said softly.

The man hesitated, then leaned forward. “Isaac.”

Isaac. My stomach dropped. The name meant nothing to me, yet it carried weight, as if I should know it. As if it had always been lurking in the background of my life, waiting for the right moment to step forward.

She repeated it under her breath, testing it on her tongue, and I saw the way something clicked into place inside her. I had seen that look before. That quiet, dawning realization. The moment of knowing.

I had seen it when she looked at me.

But now, she looked at him.

I tried to step between them, but the air itself resisted me, like I was wading through deep water. I was losing something—I was something lost.

A memory surfaced unbidden.

Her laughter in the kitchen, the scent of coffee thick in the air. The way she leaned against the counter, watching me with those same soft eyes.

“I think,” she had murmured, “that we were meant to find each other.”

I had laughed, pulling her close. “That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.”

She had smiled against my lips. “I mean it.”

I had meant it, too. But now, standing here, untouchable and unseen, I wondered if I had been wrong.

The bar blurred, the noise distant, warped. The stranger—Isaac—reached for her hand across the table. She hesitated only for a second before letting him take it.

My chest ached. I pressed a hand there as if I could hold myself together, but there was nothing to hold.

Her fingers curled around his, and something shifted. A thread pulling loose, a tether snapping. The kind of release that should have felt like freedom—but only felt like a loss.

She had found her soulmate.

And it wasn’t me.

Time slipped strangely after that. I didn’t notice the hours pass, but suddenly it was dark outside, the bar lights glowing warm against the windows. She and Isaac had left, their absence lingering like an echo. I wandered the city, drifting, aimless.

I tried to hold onto my memories—our memories—but they felt thin now, stretched, unravelling. I still remembered her laughter, her touch, the way she smelled like vanilla and summer rain. But the edges of those moments had grown hazy like an old photograph fading with time.

I wasn’t sure how much longer I would remember at all.

I found myself outside our apartment building without meaning to. A cruel instinct, guiding me home to a place I no longer belonged. I hesitated at the door, knowing I couldn’t enter. Knowing I wouldn’t find her inside.

Because she wasn’t mine to find anymore.

I turned away, my steps light on the pavement, like I was barely there at all. Maybe I wasn’t.

Like a ghost admiring the life he once had

because that's all i am

and she deserves the world, she deserves someone who is still alive.